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Farrell a Red Sox candidate

The Lowell Sun

Updated:
10/06/2012 06:37:35 AM EDT

BOSTON (AP) -- John Farrell sat in the visitors' dugout at Fenway Park as talk intensified that he might be working in the other dugout next year.

The Toronto manager looked up at two dozen reporters a month ago and told them that as Boston's pitching coach for four years under Terry Francona he learned an important lesson: think of the players first in making managerial decisions.

If you do that, he said, "you probably are guided in the right direction to do the right thing."

Since that session before the opener of the Blue Jays' three-game sweep of the Red Sox, Bobby Valentine has been fired as Boston's manager and Farrell has emerged as the leading candidate to take over. But he has a year left on his contract and the Red Sox would have to discuss compensation with the Blue Jays to make him available.

The Red Sox likely will look for a person with different attributes this time than they did during last year's search, especially with a younger roster after the team traded high-priced, underperforming veterans Josh Beckett, Adrian Gonzalez and Carl Crawford to the Los Angeles Dodgers in August.

"The team is in a different point than it was last year when we hired Bobby," Cherington said. "The roster was fairly mature and we felt, mistakenly in retrospect, but we felt at the time, that we had a chance to win and the team was ready to win and we're now at a different point.

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But he refuted the suggestion that the Red Sox aren't ready to win next season.

Others who could be candidates for the job are Cleveland interim manager Sandy Alomar Jr., Detroit third-base coach Gene Lamont and Toronto first-base coach Torey Lovullo, a former manager of the Red Sox Triple-A team at Pawtucket. All were interviewed by the Sox last year before Valentine was hired. Coaches Tim Bogar and DeMarlo Hale also could be considered.

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